Jack Engelhard’s classic international bestselling novel Indecent Proposal, which later became a worldwide hit movie, has been republished to meet readers’ demands. His other major works include Compulsive: A Novel, his award-winning post-Holocaust Montreal memoir Escape from Mount Moriah, plus Slot Attendant: A Novel About A Novelist. His website: www.jackengelhard.com

Bread lines are a good thing, Bernie Sanders used to say, while he was campaigning on his Socialist platform to throngs of believers.

Bernie was all the rage for a generation of college kids and millennials, and now that bread lines are here, hi there, how does it feel?

Ask around and people will tell you it feels like Soviet Russia with a touch of Castro’s Cuba, and Fidel was also a good thing, according to Bernie.

What could be better than a country ruled not by the consent of the people, but by the will of the government? Bring it on, shouted the kids.

Bring on Big Brother.

So now, due to the pandemic, Big Brother decides what shops can stay open, what shops must be closed, when you can leave the house, when you can’t, whether you may mow the lawn, or let it rot, at which hours you may drive, at which hours you must remain locked up, and, to top it off, be prepared, in some places, to get arrested if you break the rules. If, say, you forget to wear your mask.

Big Brother is watching.

Though unintended, Socialism crashed upon our shores through a pandemic that forced us all into hiding, with no choice but to wait until authorities told us it was safe to come out.We have only been living like this for a few months, but imagine years of it if Bernie and his multitudes had their way.

In Philadelphia a man was violently pulled off a bus for failure to wear a mask. Shades of every zombie movie you’ve ever watched. In Philadelphia the Liberty Bell is inscribed with the words of Moses from the Book of Leviticus – “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Historically, since 1752, it has been known as The Bell of Freedom.

There is no bell of Socialism in Philadelphia, or anywhere else in America. True enough that everything pre-Covid-19 seems like ancient history, but it was coming.

Bernie drew huge crowds and the Democrat leadership sat at his feet for his Lenin-style harangues. Dissenters were hushed. His Bernie Bros, largely thugs, threatened insurrection and reprisals and rioting should Bernie fail to be heeded. He had the Party in his hands. Bernie knows best. Down with rugged individualism and free enterprise. Big Government is the answer.

Long Live Big Brother.

The Party Bosses bent to his will, not knowing that a virus from far away, from China, was on a whirlwind path to bring home the consequences of their Socialist utopia.

Though unintended, Socialism crashed upon our shores through a pandemic that forced us all into hiding, with no choice but to wait until authorities told us it was safe to come out.

We had no choice but to forfeit our destinies and our freedoms.

Socialism in action.

Every governor, every mayor, could do what was right in his own eyes. They could shut you up, shut you down, on a whim.

Because of what we are facing today, at this moment, we are inclined to forget how close we were to falling for that form of government…had Bernie won the nomination. At the height of his campaign, excited college students gave Socialism a 70 percent approval rating. Socialism was on the move.

Now that we face it as the fact of our lives, the taste of it is not so yummy after all. Is it?

He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” and the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah,” for which contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com